Internet Store and Ecommerce Solution Provider - Free Web Site - Free Web Space and Site Hosting - Web Hosting - High Speed Internet
Search the Web

Report On Our 2002 Ghost Ranch Retreats

Our Lost in the Woods Knitting Retreats at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico in March were great - our 2nd annual visit. This time we were two groups of knitters, each for a week - 21 the first week and 13 the second week. Our web site attracts people from around the country now.

Ghost Ranch, Geogia O'Keeffe's former property in northern New Mexico, is now a retreat center owned by the Presbyterians. It's about an hour and 45 min. from Taos and hour and a half from Santa Fe. The special event both Fridays this time was our wonderful day with Luisa Gelenter - Master Dyer & Designer of Yarns in Taos. We met Luisa at the Visitor Center outside Taos and drove up to her dye studio to see her dyeworks in progress and listen to her talk about her personal history. She is a natural born storyteller and very passionate about fiber and yarns and dyes and color. She looks a lot like the Bolivian women who taught her to spin in the Andes in the 60s, although she was born and raised in New York City.

From the studio, we drove into Taos to La Lana Wools, Luisa's shop, and walked from there through the charming little streets of Taos to the Apple Tree Restaurant for a fabulous lunch; then back to the shop to get serious about touching yarn, and to hear Luisa tell the story of her yarns. Especially interesting is her new "Phat Yarn" - the core is wool, but the outside is silk. Wonderfully cushy. I bought some dark purple blue for an idea about knitting a crow or raven bag. I also bought some of her lightweight "Forever Random" probably for weaving into a shawl that I hope I'll be wearing next spring when we go down again. Several people bought kits for sweaters or vests. It is almost overwhelming to stand in front of all those hanks of colors and think straight (especially after lunch) and make choices - so kits are a great idea.) It took me all afternoon to find MY colors-hidden as they were and the natural murky shades that they are - those beautiful subdued earth colors and greens.

People also visited Tierra Wools which is also filled with wonderful yarns and handwoven rugs and stories. That's an afternoon drive - about 30 miles north towards Colorado. Other interesting destinations this time - The Abiqui Inn restaurant in Abiqui - the little nearby village - and Georgia O'Keeffe's house (from the outside); Ojo Caliente Hot Springs where some knitters I know but won't name almost got into trouble because they were having too much fun.

My favorite part of the Ghost Ranch retreat this time was the knitting! We knitted colorful bags proceeding in the following way: People spent some time right at the beginning looking at Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings in many books that we brought or were from the G. R. library; each knitter chose a painting and used it as a take-off point for her color palette for choosing yarns to knit with. Then I passed out shapes and designs that I had graphed on knitting graph paper. (I adapted these from a book called A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest, e.g., corn, squash vines, clouds, stars, suns, moons, birds, etc.) Then we cut the graphs out and rearranged them; found yarn from the shop stash which we spread around the room, and began to knit using O'Keeffe's colors and those wonderful primitive pictograph shapes. People knit the most wonderful bags!

We'll definitely continue to develop this theme for knitting next spring at Ghost Ranch for one or both weeks and probably also introduce something new. I think I'd like to also do something interesting in one color or one color at a time.

Hope to see you soon. Keep working on your personal peace. It can change the space around you and influence our world.

Susan

Return to the Ghost Ranch retreat page